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UK Central Government

Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) is calling for a one pence producer responsibility fee to be paid by fashion brands and retailers on each item of clothing they sell in order to fund better textile waste collection.

As part of the EAC’s inquiry into the sustainability of the fashion industry, designers and campaigners have called on government to better support repair and reuse of clothing and provide more information for consumers on the environmental impacts of their fashion choices.

The Environment Agency should be given the power to impose new fines on waste operators that deliberately mislabel their waste to avoid tax rules, according to an independent review ordered by Environment Secretary Michael Gove.

The government has been criticised by Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee for its approach to environmental policy post-Brexit, after it failed to commit to replacing EU legislation that cannot be easily transposed into UK law.

Three quarters of the UK public want the government to ensure that businesses produce repairable and recyclable products, while 90 per cent believe that all packaging should be made recyclable, according to a new survey conducted by Cardiff University.

A tax will be placed on the manufacture and import of plastic packaging containing less than 30 per cent recycled plastic, the Treasury’s Autumn Statement has revealed, though a coffee cup levy will not be introduced.

Around five million tonnes of fossil-based CO2 was emitted from the UK’s waste incinerators in 2017 from the burning of fossil-based materials such as plastics, according to a new report by the UK Without Incineration Network.